“You don’t live in a home?” Immediately, I wish I hadn’t said that.
“I live on a couch in an apartment.” Elijah takes the remote and studies it. “How do I turn this thing on?”
“You’ve never had a real home,” I say, turning to face him. “You went from a group home to a couch?” God, I can’t shut up. “No foster homes or anything?”
Elijah’s lip quirks like he’s either pissed or trying not to laugh, and I have a horrifying feeling that maybe it’s the first one.
“A few foster homes,” he says after a painfully slow moment. “Sharing a room with eight other orphans and elderly fill-in parents who spout Bible verses at you doesn’t really count as a home, I don’t think.”
I bite my lip and reach for a coffee, just to have something to do. “I’m sorry I asked.”
“It’s just a thing that happened to me, Raquel. My past doesn’t dictate my future. My present does, I guess. I mean, what I do next, now that I’m already two years older than most college freshmen.”
“You want to go to college?” I ask. Suddenly I remember Sasha mentioning this in her video at the cemetery. It sounded like she was trying to help him get into school or something.
He lifts one shoulder. “I mean, yeah. I do. I wasn’t sure at first but Sasha kind of talked me into it. I’ve spent all of my life just … surviving.” The back of his head is suddenly very itchy. “I want more than survival.”
“You deserve more than survival,” I say, wishing I had the courage to grab his hand. Sasha would have done it, and her touch would have soothed the pain behind his eyes. But that was her skill, not mine.
He shrugs again like it’s no big deal. I get the feeling he wants to change the subject, but I’m compelled to drive Sasha’s point home. “You do,” I say. “College is for everyone, not just rich, smart kids.”
He flattens his palms on his jeans. “You know, they act like scholarships are just handed out left and right, especially if you’re underprivileged, but I haven’t seen that. You walk onto the community college campus and they stare at you like you don’t belong. Tell you to look shit up online as if that’s easy for everyone.”
“Maybe you should try somewhere better than the community college. Go to the University of Texas or Sam Houston State or A&M. A real university.”
He chuckles. “You sound like my sister now. Always encouraging me to do something better for myself.”
“Good,” I say, feeling a swelling of pride in my chest. Something tells me she’d want me to have this talk with him. “She was always taking care of the people she loved. And she was very good at it.”
“She was helping me pick colleges,” he admits. “You know, before … just, before.”
That Sasha would spend her remaining weeks on earth helping someone else is just so like her. I smile without meaning to, and a silence stretches out between us. Now I want to help him, too. I’m just not sure how to do it.
“Ah, here it is,” Elijah says, pressing the power button. The TV turns on, and then he reaches for the first DVD in the box. “Ready to watch Mean Girls?”
Sasha’s face appears in a little rectangle in the middle of my laptop screen. Elijah leans forward, resting his elbows on his knees. Whatever weirdness we had is gone because Sasha is here now, and she’s all that matters.
I reach for a bagel and a container of cream cheese while she talks. “Mean Girls came out when I was four, but it wasn’t until fifth grade that Rocki and I found it in the DVD bin at the grocery store. Mom bought it for me because she always bought anything I wanted, and Rocki and I watched it three times the first night we had it. Remember?”
She looks straight ahead, not trying to guess where I’m sitting. It was obviously filmed on a different day than the other videos, because she’s wearing a gray PCHS hoodie and the circles under her eyes are prominent, meaning she’s a little deeper into her sickness. She’s sitting in one of the black leather movie chairs in their small movie room.
“Is she in a theater?” Elijah asks, leaning over and tapping the space bar to pause the video.
“Yeah, they have a room on top of their garage that they converted into a theater. It has a ninety-inch flat-screen TV in there. Sasha and I made a fort out of the box it came in.”
“Whoa,” he mutters, reaching for his second bagel. He taps the space bar and Sasha’s frozen face becomes animated again.
“We fell in love with the movie, and that day can be marked as the day I also fell in love with Tina Fey and Amy Poehler. I mean, is there anything they can’t do?” Sasha lifts her hands, her eyes wide. “You should listen to their audiobooks when you get a chance, Elijah. These women are amazing and creative souls. They’re also best friends — they remind me of me and Rocki. Anyhow, I love this movie. Mom saw us watching it a few weeks later and she freaked because she walked in on the part where Coach Carr is talking about STDs and having sex and stuff. But when she saw that we’d seen it so many times already we could quote the damn thing, she just rolled her eyes and was like ‘whatever’ and let us watch it.”
Sasha grins and sits back a little, leaning over to grab the remote. “Get your DVD on the menu screen,” she says. “I’ll wait.”
I pause the video and queue up the DVD on my TV. The tension in Elijah’s jaw is gone. I turn to him. “You ready?”
“I’m not overly psyched to watch a girl movie, but I’m excited to hear what Sasha has to say.”
I scoff. “You’re gonna love this movie. It’s hilarious and there’s a ton of hot girls in it to keep your attention.”
The skin between his brows creases. “Why would I care about hot girls in a movie?”
“Oh,” I say. “I mean, if you’re not into girls, the guy who plays Aaron Samuels is also hot.”
He takes a slow sip of his coffee, his eyes peering at me from over the plastic lid. I shouldn’t care if he’s not into girls, but why is my stomach clenching in agony while I wait for him to confirm it?
He sets his coffee cup on the coaster on the end table next to him. “I’m into girls,” he says, settling back into the couch, his arm reaching dangerously close to mine while he taps out a rhythm on the seat between us. “I’m just not into girls in movies. It’s not like I’ll ever date them, so why should I care?”
“You’re weird,” I tell him, looking at my half-eaten bagel. Zack wouldn’t pass up an opportunity to comment on a hot actress in a movie.
Sasha tells us when to press play and her plan works perfectly. The movie starts and Sasha snacks on a package of candy, the camera watching her every move while she sits sideways in her chair with her knees tucked up to her chest. She laughs at the funny parts with us, and every so often, she’ll quote the words along with the actors. I find myself watching her more than the movie. I’ll never get tired of watching her.
After three movies, we take a quick break so I can order a pizza for lunch. I refuse to let Elijah pay for it, even though he offers. He bought the breakfast and wasted all the gas money driving over here. I’ve got lunch.
We queue up the next DVD and hang out while we wait on the pizza delivery guy. I make it a point not to ask anything that will send us back down the black hole of awkwardness, and it turns out that leaves me with pretty much nothing to say.
My phone beeps from its place on the coffee table and I lean forward to check it, seeing Zack’s name on the screen.
You’re not at school. You sick?
Ignoring it, I put the phone on silent and then check my email out of habit.
“You might want to hang out around the phone tonight,” Elijah says. He scratches the back of his head, his shirtsleeve rising up and revealing a ring of lighter skin around his biceps.
“What do you mean?” For some reason, I think he’s talking about Zack and my heart seizes up in my chest.
“You know, those automated phon
e calls letting parents know their kid missed school?” He makes a blank expression and then talks in a robot voice. “To the parents of Raquel whatever-your-last-name-is,” he says, and I laugh. “Your child was absent from school today, Wednesday the twenty-first —”
“It’s the twenty-first?” I say, jumping to my feet. “Oh my God. No. It can’t be.”
Eyes wide, I pace the length of the living room.
Elijah appears in front of me, two strong arms holding me in place. “What’s wrong?”
I shake my head, but he takes my chin in his fingers and tilts my head up to look at him. I squeeze my eyes shut, not wanting to see the concern that I know is splashed across his features.
“The twenty-first,” I say, my throat dry. “It’s been one month.”
“Since …” he says, realization dawning.
I nod and a tear rolls down my cheek, which he brushes away with his thumb. I reach up and grab his hand, holding it close to me. “A whole month since she died and I almost forgot.”
“But you didn’t,” he says, pulling me against his chest as I hold back tears.
Elijah’s hugs are something special. Warm and welcoming, the smell of laundry detergent comforting me as I press my face against his chest. I feel his arm around my waist, the other one holding the back of my head, his chin resting on top of my hair.
Within moments, I feel better, but I don’t let go. I want to stay here forever, tucked into his embrace, my arms wrapped tightly around the only living piece of Sasha’s DNA.
And then the doorbell rings, and the pizza delivery guy breaks us apart.
After lunch, we play the next movie on Sasha’s list. The Princess Bride normally makes me cry because I’m a huge softy for the poor farm boy, but now that Sasha’s watching it with us, I’m not sure I can survive without flooding the living room with tears.
“As you wish,” Sasha says longingly, putting a hand to her chest. She frowns into the camera and bats her eyelashes. “God, this is such a great movie. I always wanted to marry Westley, but not until after he became the Dread Pira — oh shit, never mind! Forget I said that. Spoiler alert, right?”
“Was she always this chatty?” Elijah says, stealing a quick look my way before turning back to the TV. “Or is she talking a lot for the sake of the video?”
“She was always this chatty. I was the quiet one in school, always in her shadow.”
“Did that bother you?”
I shake my head. “No way. I liked being the shadow. Sasha always knew what to say and do. People liked her. I was just … there.”
“She really loves romance. She gets real quiet during the mushy parts of these movies. She didn’t seem that mushy in our emails.”
“She was the biggest romantic I know,” I say wistfully. “She liked the way the love unfolds in a good story. I always preferred the moment the hot guy takes his shirt off, but she lived for the slow parts that led up to it.”
“I agree with my sister. The slow parts are the best parts.” Elijah looks like he might want to say something but he turns back to the TV. “Hey, is that Andre the Giant?” he asks, his face lighting up like a kid’s.
“Yep,” I say, making my voice low. “Anybody want a peanut?”
“Huh?”
I wave a hand, dismissing my stupid joke. “You’ll see what I mean in a minute.”
When the fifth movie is over, I stand to take it out of the DVD player, stopping to stretch my limbs. “I don’t think I’ve ever been on the couch this long in my life,” I say, twisting to the side and stretching my arms up until my back cracks.
Elijah leans forward and looks at my computer screen. “I don’t think we have enough time for the last movie,” he says, looking at the back of the Harry Potter DVD. “It’s over two hours long.”
“Let’s just start it and watch as much as we can,” I say. For the fifth time today, I click on another movie link and another video of Sasha appears on the screen.
She’s redone her hair since the last one, and now it’s down, hanging loosely around her shoulders, the black headband still pressing against her forehead. She takes a sip from a soft drink can with a hot pink straw. “Okay guys, this is the last video of the day.”
She tells us about how much she loves Harry Potter and how Elijah should read all of the books and see all of the movies, but she won’t make it a requirement for now. I close my eyes, letting my head fall back against the couch as I listen. If I keep them closed, I can almost imagine that Sasha is right here with us, sitting on the recliner.
The trill of a phone ringing interrupts Sasha’s monologue and I open my eyes. “Hmm,” she says, holding up her phone to the camera. “Looks like Rocki is calling me. This will be fun,” she says, winking at the camera. She answers the call and puts it on speakerphone.
“Hey, Boo,” Sasha says, her standard greeting for whenever I called.
“What are you up to?” I ask, my voice sounding weirdly echoey and not at all like how I think I sound. “Can I come over?”
Sasha’s eyes dart to the screen, her lips widening in this apologetic way. “Sorry, I’m kinda busy for the next” — she turns the DVD over in her hand and studies the back of it — “hundred and forty-two minutes. Can I call you as soon as I’m free?”
“Yeah,” I say with a heavy sigh. “It’s just Zack. You know the drill.”
“Girl, break up with him!” She puts a hand over the phone and leans in close to the video, whispering, “If you’re still dating him when you watch this, I’m gonna be pissed.”
Then she goes back to the phone call, the one I’m starting to remember making since her 142 minutes comment struck me as weird back then, and she says, “I didn’t mean to yell. I love you, Rocki, but you need a better man than Zack. You’ll find him one day, I promise.”
“I don’t know about that,” I say through her phone. “I mean I’m too fat and too pathetic for anyone to care about.”
At that, my cheeks go red and I want to throw my laptop across the room so Elijah can’t hear any of this. But it’s too late — he’s heard every word. And he can still hear our conversation, because it’s still playing. I cover my face with my hands and bend forward, burying my face in my knees.
“Oh my God, this is so embarrassing,” I say, while the recorded version of me goes on and on, bitching about how gamer girls send Zack sexy photos and he keeps them and it pisses me off.
I groan in real life. A warm hand touches my back. “It’s okay,” Elijah says, his voice low and soft. “You want to fast-forward?”
I look up just as Sasha ends the call. With his hand still on my back, Elijah and I watch Sasha make this “mom look” at the screen.
“Listen to me, Raquel. I know you won’t listen when you come over in a couple of hours, but maybe you’ll listen now that I’m dead. You are a beautiful, wonderful person. You’re the greatest friend I’ve ever had, and if we were gay, I’d have asked you out years ago,” she says with a grin.
I try not to feel so freaking embarrassed in front of Elijah. Sasha continues, “Zack treats you like shit. He walks all over you, flirts with other girls both in real life and online, and he does it because you let him. Stop being a doormat, Rocki. You are better than that. And stop calling yourself fat. I think you’re hot, okay? And the opinion of a dead girl is a hell of a lot more reliable than that of your own low self-esteem. Got me?”
She points to the screen, her eyes narrowed. I choke out a laugh and Elijah’s hand slides up and down my back in a comforting way.
While Sasha gets up to put her copy of the DVD in her own player, Elijah turns to me, brushing my hair behind my ear. “You okay?”
I nod.
He shifts over until he’s sitting in the middle seat right next to me. “Sasha was a really good friend.”
“The best,” I croak.
“Are you
still dating that guy?”
I look up and he’s even closer now, his hand wrapped around my shoulder. I shake my head. “No. Not really.”
“Well then, you’ve made her proud,” he says.
“I hope so.”
Elijah’s hand squeezes my shoulder and it all happens so fast. I slide over just a little, letting my head fall into the crook of his collarbone. His arm stays wrapped around me, his fingertips gripping my upper arm. His heartbeat is strong and steady, a constant reminder that a piece of Sasha is still here on earth with me.
Sasha tells us when to press play, and that iconic Harry Potter theme music fills my living room with its magic.
“She’s right, you know,” Elijah whispers as the movie starts.
“About what?” I ask, letting my hand rest on his stomach.
“You are beautiful,” he says, staring straight ahead. A muscle in his jaw twitches. “It’s a shame you don’t feel that way.”
Chapter Thirteen
The next email comes a day later, while I’m at Rancho Grande eating dinner with my parents. My dad is of the old-fashioned variety, and he can’t stand phones at the table, especially since he works so much and our family time is limited. I’ve hidden my phone in my lap, under my cloth napkin. When it vibrates and I secretly check it, there’s an email from TheFutureSasha. I know I have to stay cool.
I manage to force down two more bites of my tacos al carbon, although now the normally delicious food is just another obstacle between me and that message.
“I need to use the restroom,” I say, folding my napkin and setting it on the table. My parents barely acknowledge me and continue their conversation, and I walk as quickly as a normal person might walk on their way to the bathroom.
Once inside, I slip into a stall, lock the door behind me and lean against the cool, colorful Spanish-tiled wall.
Hey favorites,
I hope y’all had fun watching the movies. Like I said before, this one’s a hard one. Rocki, take Elijah to my grandma’s place. There will be a letter for you under the gnome on the porch. Try to go in the morning and do not get caught. Dad should be at work and Mom won’t notice because she never goes over there.
The Last Wish of Sasha Cade Page 9